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Occasionally I cross paths with a woman who is lovely in every way. She is warm and thoughtful and present. She takes the time to offer compliments and affirmations to others. She is gifted in her work. Her heart is clearly good. She is also externally very beautiful. Her skin literally glows and she seems to grow more youthful with the passage of time. Her eyes are bright and alive. I recently learned that she views herself through a very different lens. She questions her own good judgement. She thinks that she is old. She is too hard on herself. I was so very disheartened to hear this—not because she is disappointing me but because I could write this same story of any number of other women that I know. Another woman—a friend—who is also so very lovely in many ways expressed to me that she was a “poor communicator” because she had unknowingly organized an event that overlapped with another event. Her intentions were so good, the gathering was successful and yet she came away berating herself. This is a woman who could have been patting herself on the back for her willingness to be in the arena and instead she experienced herself as flawed. I can only hope that my words in response to her could shine a light instead on her goodness, her willingness to help, her positive intention.

Recently I scheduled meetings with both of my children’s teachers for their seasonal conferences. I thought that I had arranged for them to fall on the same day but upon arrival for the first meeting, I realized it was actually scheduled to take place the following day. The warm and forgiving teacher whisked us into the classroom for a quick overview in the few minutes she had between her actual meetings and kindly offered us an opportunity to reschedule. She in no way expressed judgement, however, it was interesting to travel around my own consciousness and witness the way in which I responded to myself. I was not as harsh as I might have been in the past and yet I could not help but notice how delicate the fabric of my being can be in the face of—even non-existent—reproach.

I have been gifted with a loyal companion when I write. Like the season she was named for, “Autumn” is a Calico with black, white and orange markings. She lies next to me sleeping as I attempt to convey the story of my life, waking to purr occasionally and rolling a little onto her back. She has one little snaggletooth and a black marking on her forehead that looks as if someone might have picked her up there by her scruff leaving a thumb and forefinger print when dipping her into a bucket of color. She has seen it all. She was with me in my tiny West Village apartment in New York City on September 11th—still tiny then. I remember she liked to put her head up near the light in a little lamp I had and my sister always marveled at how she seemed to be, “seeking the light.” I remember being afraid to leave her there in the apartment when I traveled up to be with friends on the Upper West Side—not knowing if there was more to come after the towers came down. She was my witness as I navigated, in those years, relationships and jobs and my unfolding creative self. I adopted another cat who tormented her and left her in his very big shadow for a number of years. She moved with me into two other apartments and watched on as I got married and later found out I was pregnant. She was there when I experienced a miscarriage two days before an intricately planned trip to Spain. She was there as my belly grew again and later when we brought Jonah home just after Christmas. She endured another move—this time to Maine where she could peer out numerous windows, fixating on the many birds that come into our yard. And then she greeted another wiggly baby, Adrian, with his loud cries and contagious laughter. She has witnessed me in every single possible state of emotion and circumstance under the sun and still she is here, eager to rub her head against mine and blink her eyes lovingly in my direction.

It is an unseasonably warm morning in Southern Maine. Our screen door is open and I am listening to the song of seagulls as they come and go, rocking back and forth across the sky, first near and clear along the rocky shoreline and then dim and fading in the distance. I’m especially drawn to their whistles as they call out to one another. I find their cries soothing and they somehow elevate my insides to a place of quiet contentment. I’m peering out over the sun-drenched mudflats and suddenly notice a bit of movement in the distance, a bit of blue —a “clammer” is there almost fully blending into the landscape, folded at the hips and digging for clams. It seems that we are a world away from one another.

I’m home for a rest day and my children are at school. With a minor cold, I’ve fully lost my voice and needed to cancel my plans for the day. It was interesting to try to capture my boys’ attention this morning in a whisper—a profound contrast to the escalating strength of sound I’ve needed to gather their eyes these past weeks as they have stepped fully into a new chapter of their growth and independence. The whispering proved more effective.

Rising before daybreak this last month has peaked my attention, heightened my inner-listening and brought me more in-tune with a sense of magic and co-creation with the Divine. I choose this term, “the Divine” purposefully. It indicates a quality of pleasure in this process. It speaks to a communion with that which is greater than me. It carries with it a bow toward all that is sacred. This word might be substituted with: God, The Universe, All-That-Is, Higher Self, Consciousness, Spirit, Inner Self or any other word or feeling that resonates. I’ve been noticing the ways in which the Divine is whispering to me as I go about my work in the world and reveling in the flow that comes to life when I am listening. I’ve compiled a list of a few ways in which I have witnessed this conversation playing out for me. My hope is that in considering these observations and suggestions, you might heighten your own inner-listening, come to trust and follow your own unique calling and join me in the journey toward a better world.

Be willing to begin the conversation with a question. I recently came to a place in my work as an artist in which I needed to make a decision about the direction to go in next. I was drawn to three different projects—one of which is to create a piece of art that would be donated for a public space where homeless and disenfranchised individuals go to gather and eat. Journaling in the morning I made a request for direction and opened my heart to listening. A few hours later, in a quiet moment, I had the opportunity to open a book that I often reference regarding the creative path and turned to a random page. I came across this proclamation “Make something for someone else, not to be somebody.” Message received, easy as pie.

Trust in and notice divine meetings. I had recently been in a meaningful exchange with a dear friend and fellow artist. It would have been nice to have connected with her for lunch or even on the phone after this exchange, however, both of us had a lot going on and neither of us had reached out to connect in-person. I was in a place that I rarely go at an unusual time. She was there in the same place outside of her normal routines. Together in the crowded space our paths crossed and somehow our exchange/work together felt affirmed. We connected and celebrated the work of the Universe bringing us together despite our unavailability.

Sometimes the messages will be subtle. In some ways I am partial to the more nuanced ways in which the Divine comes through to me. These are the moments in which the hairs on my arms raise up ever-so-slightly or I sense a shift in my energy when I hear or read something. These are the times in which I feel stirred, called, compelled. It’s where the heart comes into play and pleasure, too. What and to whom do I feel drawn? What would I love to do if I were not afraid? These messages can be accessed at any time with a quieted mind and an inward attention.

Sometimes the messages will be really clear. In the fall of 2014, I was spending the day with my son Adrian. Thursday’s were our “special days” then and we would spend the entire day together while Jonah had a longer day at school. On this particular Thursday, we had gone to the library in the afternoon. We picked out some books for him and played a game. As we were leaving the library I suddenly felt compelled to ask the reference librarian if she could look for me to see if there were any books about the art business that I might be interested in checking out. At that time I had been experiencing some of the more subtle whisperings and was in the process of opening myself to bringing my art more into the world. She took me to a “jobs” section where she thought there might be some books about creative work and told me she would be back after she had done a further search. Immediately, a book caught my eye. It was called, “Show Your Work!” by Austin Kleon. I took it off of the shelf, glanced at it briefly and handed it to Adrian to look at while I perused the shelf further looking for something more “specific.” It was bright yellow and appeared to have some pictures, I thought it might occupy him. Glancing down I could see that he was looking at the table of contents exploring the numbers. After a few minutes of looking, I didn’t find anything else that seemed meaningful to me and Adrian handed the original book back to me. I decided that it was probably the only book in the section that was going to be of any use. I opened it up to explore it further and turned directly to the inscription page. It read, “FOR MEGHAN.” Clearly I had found my book! This book led to the entire creation of my website and joining together my art and my writing and opening more doors than I could even begin to count.

Trust in divine timing and believe in meaning. I have come to understand time in a less fixed and more fluid way. I’ve come to believe that things never really end and that all relationships, all interactions—even the painful ones, maybe especially the painful ones—have purpose and potential to propel us toward growth. When faced with seemingly insurmountable challenges with people or events in life, it can be a powerful exercise—at the very least—to offer up these situations somewhere, anywhere! I offer mine up to the Divine and I both grow patient and simultaneously release. I try not to linger in worry and yet my attention is peaked for the ways in which I am being acknowledged by a greater voice. It comes in the message on the highway billboard, the initials on a license plate. It is the cat in the play that looks just like my own. It all matters. Every single thing.

Express gratitude. When I begin working on a new piece of art, I always invite the Divine into the process. When I complete a piece of work, I always offer thanks to the Divine. I do not pretend to know how that translates. All I know is that I can feel the good things grow in my life when I am grateful and that my worries lesson when I release them to something greater than me. It does not explain all of the truly awful things that happen in the world. The only thing it explains is that my ability to give as well as my ability to receive grows with gratitude.

Thank you for your continued support in both my writing and in my art. If you have read these words, please consider this the Divine speaking through me to you. With love, Meghan

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A few years ago I purchased a small, cornflower blue journal with a golden inscription, “One Line A Day – A Five Year Memory Book.” I began making entries just before Jonah turned three when he was ardently discovering the world and slowing my pace so that I might have the pleasure of noticing whiskers on cats right along with him. Adrian was a chubby 8 months old who consumed a diet of avocado and raspberries with abandon—remnants often strewn across his kissable cheeks and our dining room floor. In the tiny space given for each day, I wrote brief impressions about the resonant—yet mostly mundane—moments of our lives. I was hopeful that with a meager single-sentence commitment that I would be steadfast in my resolve to take note and remember these precious times. There are multiple mentions of our blue push car which must have clocked 1,000 miles as we trekked to Shore Road in all manner of weather. I began writing my blog in that year and professed my gratitude repeatedly for this new outlet of expression. Oh, and the snow, there are so many descriptions of the beauty of living in a virtual snow-globe. I do not know why I stopped writing so abruptly. I do remember the struggle of keeping track—of missing days and trying to write backward in time. I’ve since thought a lot about memory. I’ve thought about the stories we hold sacred for our children—and for ourselves—so that we might offer them a framework for their lives. I’ve thought about what it is I remember from my own life and the reasons why. Years have since passed. My boys have grown and expanded and transformed before my eyes until they just burst forth from their place as the tiny innocents within our constant care into these gorgeous, autonomous creatures firmly taking up their very own space in the world.

We are at a local, annual pumpkin festival. We’ve been coming here every season for about six years. It’s quite chilly and many of the hundreds of beautifully carved pumpkins lining the grounds are partially green. We’ve had a rocky start to our afternoon with tears over coats being worn and other general manifestations of tiredness. Feathers unruffled now, we stride up to the festivities and take part in “gourd bowling” and a beanbag toss. Soon we run into “Pumpkin Pete.” He is a familiar fellow with his spongey, orange costume and human body hidden from sight. Jonah strides up to him and reaches out to shake his hand. We smile reminding him of how afraid he used to be of this costumed character and he does a little impression of that faraway time. Adrian grabs my hand so that he might fearlessly go more near. Together we take a photograph. Next we notice giant bubbles in the distance—over by where the band will play later. There is a man there who is using an unusual apparatus—likely of his own construction—in order to create enormous bubbles in various forms. He has configured two long poles tied together with a network of thin rope. With the poles he dips the rope down into a soapy solution then raising them back up into the air he swings them about forming these magical—and enormous—otherworldly creations. Jonah and Adrian at first stand mesmerized. Then they go jumping about with the other children in an attempt to reach these floating, light-filled orbs. Occasionally a taller child manages to catch the edge of a bubble and the soapy liquid comes splashing down on the crowd. This happens just above Adrian. I use my gloved hands to wipe suds from his hat, from his long eyelashes. The sounds of 1980’s popular music fill the air, children are laughing and jumping all around, the bubble man looks on grimly as he works to keep his magic bulbs appearing with so many bouncy children in his midst. I find my eyes fixed on one very large, lone bubble as it travels above the crowd and begins floating further and further away, rotating and expanding and changing shapes as it goes.

If you would like to receive Meghan’s Journal Entries upon publication, please share your e-mail address below.

I’ve just left our bustling household. My husband and I made a quick hand-off with our boys and I am now heading for a meeting at their school. I’m snuggled in my car now and I’ve got the heat blasting despite the onset of Spring. We are still measuring snow in feet here in Maine. I take in this wonderful sensation—chilled bones heating up with toasty air. I’ve driven about a mile now and reach forward to turn on the radio but bring my hand back to the steering wheel instead. I decide to allow the silence to wash over me like the waves of heat now coming through the vents. It is so still and quiet on these hilly roads. I can feel myself softening—the boisterous voices of my children falling away, the requests and needs no longer surrounding me. I’m driving along and I notice a little pine tree in front of a home still decorated with colorful holiday lights. I am suddenly taken back to the Christmas tree of my childhood and I feel little tears come to the corners of my eyes. Normally my emotions are secured in a much deeper place, but that tree—it triggers something. The intense feeling passes quickly and I wonder about it a little. I’m coming to a sort of intersection now where cars can merge seemingly out of nowhere and I’m remembering another car ride with my now four year old son, Adrian. It was right about here—at this strange intersection—that he said a few magical words to me, that I have tucked away for safe keeping.

It was one of the first snowy days that we’d had this winter. We had rushed out of the house to pick up my bigger boy Jonah early from school. His slightly irritated eye had rapidly revealed itself as “pink-eye” within the first few hours of his being dropped off. We were driving along and I was noticing the way the snow met the windshield and I was both rushing and trying to be careful of the increasingly covered roads. Adrian was looking at a book in his carseat and he wanted to show me an image he saw in the book. It was too dangerous for me to be turning and looking even quickly so I told him that he would have to describe to me what he saw. I felt rushed to get Jonah and I felt guilty for not noticing that his eye was on the verge of a bigger issue. I asked Adrian to describe to me what he saw in the book and he said, “There is a little girl with a butterfly on her head and she looks grateful.” I heard his description and I felt my entire body relax. We continued propelling forward in our car on slippery roads, but in my mind time suddenly slowed and then came to a complete stop as I found myself momentarily living in the spaces between his lovely words, “there is a little girl with a butterfly on her head and she looks grateful.” I took in the beauty of the snow kissed tree branches now almost in slow-motion while my heart dangled on Adrian’s words. It was the butterfly on the little girl’s head—a magical butterfly. It was that word—grateful. It was Adrian’s capacity—at age three, then—to notice what grateful looks like. It was the unexpected nature of being stopped in my tracks on that snowy, rushed drive. I repeated Adrian’s words back to him and told him how much I liked his description. I thought about stopping and writing his words down. We moved on, though, and soon we were picking up Jonah. He and his teacher met us at the school door. His eye was watering like a faucet and was really, really pink against his bright green jacket and the white snowflakes coming down. We collected him and hurried for the car where we would call the doctor and carry on.

As I have embarked upon bringing my new website to life, I have been holding space within for revelations about what more it is that I would like to share here. I have been listening deeply for what I am called to share here. I believe this will ultimately unfold as I sit down to write and my thoughts begin revealing themselves, however, in this moment I keep coming to this, to the moments like these with those magical words that I received from my son—thinning the veil and slowing time for me. I keep coming to the idea of sharing about the places where our lives are speaking to us and the times in which we may meet those messages with peaked attention, allowing them to offer us a sense of our own purpose, a sense of that which will matter at the end of this chapter of our lives and ultimately in the final pages. My wish is to share about this and about so much more.

I hope that you will stay with me as I move slowly into this work of putting these moments, these ideas, to the “page”—my life remains so full with my family and with my art. And I hope that you will stay with me when my webpage decides to slow time as well—there are still a few kinks to be worked through! And if my words are speaking to you, please consider sharing them with the people in your life who may benefit.

If you would like to receive Meghan’s Journal Entries, please share your e-mail address below.

Autumn has been meandering here in Southern Maine. In the orchard at my bigger boy Jonah’s school, the yellow jackets have hung around well into this colorful season sampling the plentiful apples. The leaves have transformed into magnificent shades of tangerine and amber and burgundy even as our winter jackets have remained tucked away inside. It is only in the last week that cooler nighttime temperatures have allowed for us to feel justified in lighting a fire in our wood stove, not just for the first time this season but for the first time in several years. In winters past, I’ve blamed our lack of a home fire burning—in this snowy, cozy place—on the diminutive size of the stove, on the lack of a window to see how the fire is faring, on protecting the little ones from hot surfaces. The truth is that there was something more holding me back.

Sometime in late summer I began to know that this would be the year that we would strike the match at last. I could feel embers simmering in the core of me. In anticipation, I shared with my husband thoughts of lowering heating bills, of warming our home with a deeper, more resonating warmth. I talked of getting in the habit of using the stove and describing how then it would become a part of us. These too were ideas dancing around the real reason that I needed to bring this fundamental, earthly element with all of its heat and passion and warmth into my life, into the lives of my children.

I lit our fire somewhat unceremoniously the first time. My husband was trying to leave to run an errand and I told him that I was going to light a fire and asked him did he know which way the handle on the side of the stove was supposed to be turned so that the smoke didn’t come billowing into our home. He said, “no” and went upstairs to get his socks. I think I needed to light that first fire in that way for the same reason one might pull a bandaid off quickly. I needed to just do it and see that I could. I didn’t really understand all that it was tied to for me at the time. I did know how I would feel once it was lit. That first fire did not disappoint. Within moments my two beloved boys and I were cuddled up around it. With the surge of the flames, I felt an inner warmth come alive inside of me. I felt Jonah and Adrian settle down into themselves, eyes fixated on the flickering wonder. I felt grounded and capable and secure—all at the same time. There was nothing wrong with the size of the stove and the doors could be easily propped open with a screen so that we could take in the golden blaze.

For years now, weekends have been a time of reunion with my husband for both me and for our children. I have been reticent to take time away by myself to refuel wanting to create memories of the four of us together, wanting to not put that pressure on my husband after a long week of early rising and late nights. But lately, with a chronic medical condition flaring, it’s become less of a choice for me. It was for this reason that I found myself being dropped off at home by my husband and two boys on a grey, Sunday afternoon. I didn’t know whether to cry or drink in the silence as I walked inside. I put down my things and headed straight for the wood stove. I pulled on my stiff gardening gloves and opened the creaking, cast iron doors and began gathering together logs and kindling. I took off my gloves so that I might better ball up a couple of sheets of newspaper and tuck them between the wood and the kindling. I leaned forward onto my knees, rolling back the igniting mechanism of my lighter, then pressing down, listening to the clicking sound as I moved it forward into the stove. The papers were lit and the flame quickly spread from newspaper to birch bark to wood. Despite the afternoon hour, the room felt dark and I sat back on my heels opening my chest, opening my heart to the firelight. It was then that I knew. It was then that I knew what had been holding me back from this glorious experience of this essential element. In that moment—my inner glow expanding—I experienced a fleeting memory of a time in which I had surrendered myself to motherhood, a time in which I had surrendered myself to my marriage, even. There with the warmth of the fire bearing down on me, a sensation traveled through me, reminding me of a time when I had convinced myself that I would only loose myself for a short while. That this would be ok. I convinced myself that I would only give myself over completely, temporarily. It was with this realization that I was reignited. A part of me that I had given away—albeit small—rejoined me then. It was the part of me that lights fires, of course. It was the part of me that makes art. It was the part of me that has time. It was the part of me that makes time. Attempting to savor that feeling was like trying to catch a snowflake in a gusting wind. It hasn’t mattered, though. I’ve remembered. That’s all it takes. Even on warmish days, I have found reason to light a fire in our home and I plan to do so until winter is no longer.